1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to sheet processing apparatus and method for recognizing OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) sheets having fixed formats and an information processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there has been available an information processing apparatus capable of transmitting data to a specified circulation place by inputting a document circulation sheet provided with data, as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 06-284144. In this document circulation sheet, there is an area for specifying a circulation destination and the sheet processing apparatus in the information processing apparatus recognizes information on circulation destinations handwritten in this area by an operator and determines a place to which data is to be sent.
Processing of an image recorded in the sheet by recognizing the same in such a manner enables the operator to perform an operation very easily only by handwriting a content to be processed in the sheet and inputting this to the sheet processing apparatus without needing to perform other complex operations with an operation panel on the sheet processing apparatus. The sheet can also be input via facsimile equipment and thus this may be applied to various fields.
However, it has been impossible to use sheets edited, for instance by synthesizing or reducing two sheets in one for saving paper or conversely expanding sheets so as to enable inputting of large characters. This was mainly due to the assumption that an area to be recognized in the sheet was in a fixed position when the sheet should be recognized.
In the case of unrecorded sheets with nothing handwritten therein, data would be made by copying this using a copying machine. However, repeated copying of this brought about reduction in the sheet quality and lowering of a recognition rate. When there were no unrecorded sheets any more, it was necessary for the operator to erase the handwritten portions by an eraser or correction liquid.
Therefore, for the conventional information processing apparatus, a problem lies in the fact that it is impossible to use sheets edited, for instance by synthesizing or reducing two sheets in one for saving paper or conversely expanding sheets so as to enable inputting of large characters.
Another problems lies in the fact that in the case of unrecorded sheets with nothing handwritten therein, though data is made by copying this using a copying machine, repeated copying reduces the quality of the sheets and lowers a recognition rate.